Articles, such as beverages, containers, enclosed goods and the like, are often packed into housings, such as containers, crates or the like. In some examples identical articles are packed into the housings for shipping, distribution and sale. In other examples, two or more different types of articles are packed into a housing, for instance to form a variety pack of articles. The variety pack of articles is purchased by customers because of the differing types of articles therein. One example of a variety pack of articles includes a housing containing a plurality of differing beverage articles (e.g., soft drinks, beer, or the like).
In one example, a variety pack of articles is assembled by manually opening a plurality of article housings (e.g., beer cases), hand picking one or more beverages from each of the article housings and then repacking the picked beverages in an open housing. The laborer is given instructions on how many of each type of beverage are specified for the opening housing.
In other examples, a machine orients and reorients a packing head that is moved over conveyor delivered containers (e.g., containers delivered from a production line) to pick and pack the containers in a mixed package. The packing head includes plural modules, and each of the modules includes receptacles for containers. The packing head then rotates to place the modules and picked containers in the mixed package. Optionally, the packing head rotates the modules relative to each other for placement of the containers in the mixed package.